# Nils Schmid

# Nils Schmid

Nils Schmid (born 11 July 1973 in Trier) is a German lawyer and politician of the [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany) (SPD). He has sat in the Bundestag since October 2017, elected on the Baden-Württemberg state list and standing as a candidate in the Nürtingen constituency. The Bundestag lists him as the SPD parliamentary group's foreign-policy spokesperson since 2018 and as a member of the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly since 2019. On the evening of 6 May 2025, after [Boris Pistorius](/people/boris-pistorius) remained federal defence minister in the cabinet of Chancellor [Friedrich Merz](/people/friedrich-merz), Pistorius appointed Schmid and Sebastian Hartmann parliamentary state secretaries at the Federal [Ministry of Defence](/organizations/ministry-of-defence), succeeding Siemtje Möller and Thomas Hitschler.

Schmid passed his Abitur in Filderstadt in 1993, studied law at the University of Tübingen from 1994 to 1999, and completed a doctorate in 2006. He worked as a self-employed lawyer from 2001 to 2011. He joined the SPD in 1991 and was a member of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg from 1997 to 2017.

He chaired the Baden-Württemberg SPD from November 2009 to October 2016. A state party congress in Karlsruhe elected him on 27 November 2009 with 265 of 299 valid votes, 88.6 percent, in succession to Ute Vogt. At the state election of 27 March 2011 the [Christian Democratic Union of Germany](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany) (CDU) won 39.0 percent, Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens) 24.2 percent and the SPD 23.1 percent, with turnout at 66.3 percent. From 2011 to 2016 he was deputy minister-president and minister of finance and economic affairs under Minister-President [Winfried Kretschmann](/people/winfried-kretschmann). At the election of 13 March 2016 the SPD fell to 12.7 percent and 19 of 143 seats; turnout was 70.4 percent, and the Greens, on 30.3 percent, finished ahead of the CDU. Edith Sitzmann of the Greens succeeded him as finance minister.

In the federal election of 2025 the SPD received 16.4 percent of the first votes in Nürtingen. The constituency seat went to Matthias Hiller of the CDU, with 37.7 percent, and Schmid entered the Bundestag through the state list. On 9 May 2025 Kretschmann presented him with the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg at a ceremony in Mannheim for 24 recipients.

## Early life and education

### Family and schooling

Nils Schmid was born on 11 July 1973 in Trier. His parents were German expellees, and his father became a customs officer. They made a [new start](/facts/new-start) in southwestern Germany. His mother was the first girl in her family to study; she became a teacher and later a professor. In a profile published during the 2011 state-election campaign he described that record, from his parents' displacement to his own examinations, with the words "all earned, not come by underhand means." He grew up in Filderstadt and Nürtingen, neighbouring towns on the Filder plateau south of Stuttgart, in Baden-Württemberg.

In 1993 he passed the Abitur at the Eduard-Spranger-Gymnasium in Filderstadt, then named for the philosopher and educational theorist Eduard Spranger; the school is now the Elisabeth-Selbert-Gymnasium. *WirtschaftsWoche* reported that he achieved the top grade, and the *Frankfurter Rundschau* described the result as an *Einser-Abitur*. Straight after the Abitur he performed Zivildienst, the civilian alternative to conscription, in a nursing home run by the Arbeiterwohlfahrt. He had joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1991, at 18, while still at school.

### University and doctorate

From 1994 to 1999 Schmid studied law at the University of Tübingen. He passed the first state examination in law in 1999 and the second in 2001. The *Frankfurter Rundschau* listed a *Prädikatsexamen*, the honours grade in the state examinations, among his qualifications. In 1997 a member of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg died and Schmid, then 24, succeeded to the seat; he later said that he would otherwise have stayed at the university. He remained a Landtag member from 1997, so the second examination and the doctorate both came after he had taken his seat.

In 2006 Tübingen awarded him the doctorate *summa cum laude*. The dissertation, *Staatliches Liegenschaftsmanagement, Staatsverschuldung und Staatsvermögen*, was supervised at the chair of Ferdinand Kirchhof, whom a 2011 profile identified as the then vice-president of the Federal [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court). It appeared in 2007 with Duncker & Humblot in Berlin as volume 76 of the *Tübinger Schriften zum Staats- und Verwaltungsrecht*, a book of 219 pages.

The study treats the reorganization of federal and state real-estate administration as part of the modernization of public administration since the mid-1990s. Schmid's account, as summarized by the publisher, is that private-law experiments remained the exception and that the *Landesbetrieb*—a public-law enterprise with managerial autonomy—was the standard form. The comparative survey runs from Schleswig-Holstein's early and troubled reform through the *Landesbetriebe* created in states including Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse, Saxony and Baden-Württemberg, and on to the federal shift of property administration toward what became the Bundesanstalt für Immobilienaufgaben. He argued that moving property management into off-budget entities still had to satisfy the constitutional rules on the unity of the budget and on borrowing, and that the weight of public real estate justified what the book calls a "renaissance of state property law," tied to a balance sheet of state assets and a duty to preserve their value. A large part of the second section is given to Article 115 of the Basic Law, the federal limit on credit, to the debt rules in the *Land* constitutions, and to sale-and-lease-back of public property as concealed borrowing.

## Legal career

A March 2011 *WirtschaftsWoche* profile reported that, after law studies at the University of Tübingen, Schmid passed the first state examination in 1999 and the second in 2001, the examinations required for admission as a German lawyer. The Filderstadt firm K3S Rechtsanwälte states that the *Referendariat*, the practical training between those examinations, was served at the Landgericht in Stuttgart, and that he has been a lawyer in the firm since 2001. The Bundestag biography, based on members' own information, and the curriculum vitae of the Federal Ministry of Defence both describe him as a self-employed lawyer (*selbstständiger Rechtsanwalt*) from 2001 to 2011, and the Bundestag names K3S Rechtsanwälte, Filderstadt, as the occupation before the federal mandate.

It trades as K3S Rechtsanwälte Straub, Staufer, Schwemmle, Weller, Bauer PartGmbB, seated at Bonländer Hauptstraße 72 in Filderstadt-Bonlanden, with further offices in Ostfildern-Nellingen and Reutlingen, and is entered in the partnership register of the Amtsgericht Stuttgart as PR 720954; the legal notice lists Schmid among the lawyers for whom the Rechtsanwaltskammer Stuttgart is competent, but not among the named partners.

Those years overlapped membership of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg, which the defence ministry dates from 1997 to 2017. He left active practice on entering the state government, serving from 2011 to 2016 as deputy minister-president and minister of finance and economic affairs of Baden-Württemberg. Section 5(1) of the state Minister Act, in the text promulgated on 20 August 1991, bars full-time members of the government from another salaried office, a trade or a profession, and from the management or supervisory body of a commercial enterprise, unless the Landtag allows an exception. Schmid states that his lawyer's activity has been suspended since 2011; the SPD Bundestag group uses the same wording. Section 47(2) of the Federal Lawyers' Act allows a bar chamber, on application, to appoint a representative for a lawyer in a public office that forbids practice in person.

In the Bundestag register of members' interests, the pre-mandate occupation is "K3S Rechtsanwälte, Filderstadt" with the note "Rechtsanwalt, Rückkehrrecht" (a right of return), and paid activity alongside the mandate is "Rechtsanwalt, Filderstadt", with no sum stated. Abgeordnetenwatch's copy of the disclosures for the 2021–2025 and 2025–2029 terms records the side activity as freelance lawyer (*Rechtsanwalt – freiberuflich*); the income field is blank. Since May 2025 he has been Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Defence. Section 7 of the Parliamentary State Secretaries Act applies section 5 of the Federal Ministers Act, which prohibits practicing a profession alongside that office. K3S still lists him and states that the lawyer's activity is dormant.

## Landtag of Baden-Württemberg

### Entry and roles in the SPD group

Nils Schmid was a member of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg from 20 February 1997 until the end of 9 October 2017. He succeeded rather than being elected: Werner Weinmann, a deputy of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), had died, and the state returning officer wrote on 20 February 1997 that Weinmann's mandate passed that day to Schmid, then of Nürtingen. President Straub announced the succession on 19 March 1997. At 23, Schmid was the youngest member of the 12th electoral period.

In that period he sat on the science committee. From 2001 to 2011 he was the SPD Landtag group's finance-policy spokesperson, and in both the 13th and the 14th periods he was a member of the finance committee. In the 13th period he also served on the investigative committee on FlowTex. From 2006 to 2011 he was deputy chair of the SPD group. From 2011 to 2016 he was instead deputy minister-president and minister of finance and economic affairs, while remaining a Landtag member. After the 2016 election he was the group's spokesperson on the arts and culture, returned to the science committee, and joined the committee for Europe and international affairs.

The seat ended with his move to the Bundestag. By a letter of 6 October 2017 he resigned the Landtag mandate with effect from the close of 9 October. The state returning officer told President Muhterem Aras that Ramazan Selcuk had acquired the legal status of a member on 10 October, and Aras welcomed Selcuk at the sitting of 11 October.

### Constituencies

Until a later reform, Baden-Württemberg elected the Landtag without party lists and with one vote. The plurality winner in each constituency took a direct seat; further seats, called second mandates, went to each qualifying party's strongest unsuccessful candidates. A law adopted on 8 October 2009, in force the day after promulgation, changed that ranking before the 2011 election. It had followed absolute vote totals, which favoured large constituencies, and thereafter followed each candidate's share of the votes cast in the constituency. The same statute redrew many boundaries, including Nürtingen.

Schmid's constituency through the 12th, 13th and 14th periods was constituency 9, Nürtingen. The Landtag's membership directory of July 2001 lists him for that seat. At the election of 25 March 2001 the SPD there received 27,677 votes, 32.0 percent of 86,367 valid votes, against 36,139 (41.8 percent) for the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU); turnout was 67.7 percent. The direct seat followed the plurality, so his return was a second mandate. On 26 March 2006 he was again elected on a second mandate, with 18,118 votes (23.0 percent). Jörg Döpper of the CDU took the direct seat with 32,371 votes (41.2 percent). Ulrich Noll of the Free Democratic Party (10,856 votes, 13.8 percent) and Winfried Kretschmann of Alliance 90/The Greens (10,781 votes, 13.7 percent) also won second mandates, so the constituency returned four deputies. Turnout was 59.6 percent of 133,301 eligible voters.

In February 2010 Schmid, by then SPD state chair, sought the nomination in constituency 60, Reutlingen, instead. He told the party that the changes in electoral law had made another win through Nürtingen less certain, and that a sitting state chair had to be sure of a seat; the SPD executives in the districts of Reutlingen and Tübingen supported him. On 27 March 2011 he was the SPD candidate there, still with a Nürtingen address, and Ramazan Selcuk was his substitute. The statistical office's preliminary table gave the SPD 20,841 votes (24.7 percent), the Greens' Thomas Poreski 21,607 (25.6 percent) and the CDU's Dieter Hillebrand 30,577 (36.3 percent); turnout was 67.4 percent. Hillebrand took the direct seat, and Poreski and Schmid entered on second mandates.

He stood in Reutlingen again on 13 March 2016 and was once more returned on a second mandate. The SPD received 12,829 votes (14.2 percent). Poreski won the direct seat for the Greens with 28,073 votes (31.2 percent), and the CDU candidate received 21,489 votes (23.9 percent). The mandate Schmid resigned in October 2017 was this Reutlingen seat.

## Leadership of the Baden-Württemberg SPD

### 2009 membership ballot

Schmid became chair of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in Baden-Württemberg after Ute Vogt, state chair since 1999 and lead candidate in 2001 and 2006, declined to stand again. The state SPD had taken 19.3 percent in Baden-Württemberg at the September 2009 federal election, and Vogt said she was clearing the way for a new start before the 2011 state election. The state executive nominated three candidates for a consultative membership ballot on 21 November 2009: Schmid, deputy leader of the SPD group in the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg and its finance spokesman; Hilde Mattheis, a Bundestag member from Ulm, deputy state chair and a figure on the party's left; and Claus Schmiedel, chair of the Landtag group. The vote did not itself fill the office. Delegates were to elect the chair at a congress in Karlsruhe on 27 November.

*Nils Schmid after his election as SPD state chair at the party congress in Karlsruhe on 27 November 2009, beside his wife Tülay Schmid.*

Members voted in branch polling stations or by post, with two preferences on each ballot so that, if nobody had an absolute majority, the second preferences of supporters of the third-placed candidate could be added. Of 18,630 ballots, a turnout of 47.35 percent, 18,353 were valid and 165 were abstentions. On the first count Schmid received 8,481 votes (46.2 percent), Mattheis 5,341 (29.1 percent) and Schmiedel 4,192 (22.8 percent). The party reported a second count of 10,303 votes (56 percent) for Schmid and 6,707 (37 percent) for Mattheis. Mattheis and Schmiedel did not contest the delegate election. On the evening of 27 November Schmid received 265 of 299 valid votes, 88.6 percent. He called the result a signal of renewal, said the state party would "dare more democracy" and wider membership participation, and said that "Basta politics" was finished. He had been an SPD member since 1991 and a Landtag member since 1997.

Later congresses re-elected him. In Offenburg on 14 October 2011 he received 88.2 percent, slightly below 2009, and Katja Mast became general secretary. At Reutlingen on 18–19 October 2013 the vote was 208 in favour, 57 against and 26 abstentions. In Mannheim on 9 October 2015, five months before the next state election, he received 272 votes in favour, 23 against and four abstentions, about 91 percent.

### State elections of 2011 and 2016

A congress in Ulm on 16 October 2010 elected Schmid, the only candidate, lead candidate for the Landtag election of 27 March 2011, with 267 of 292 votes in favour, 17 against and eight abstentions. He stood against Minister-President Stefan Mappus of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU). In the official final result the SPD won 1,152,594 votes, 23.1 percent, 2.1 points below 25.2 percent in 2006, and turnout was 66.3 percent, up from 53.4 percent. The SPD took 35 of 138 seats, one of them a constituency seat. The CDU stayed largest, on 39.0 percent and 60 seats, but the Free Democratic Party (Germany) fell to 5.3 percent and seven seats, and the governing coalition lost its majority. Alliance 90/The Greens, led by Winfried Kretschmann, placed second with 24.2 percent and 36 seats, just ahead of the SPD. Greens and SPD together held 71 seats.

For 2016 Schmid was again the sole lead candidate. A congress in Singen on 14 March 2015 gave him 93.38 percent. On 13 March 2016 the SPD took 679,727 votes, 12.7 percent, and 19 of 143 seats, none of them a constituency mandate. That was 10.4 points and 16 seats below 2011, and *[Der Spiegel](/organizations/der-spiegel)* called it by far the party's worst result in the state since the war. The Greens under Kretschmann led with 30.3 percent and 47 seats. The CDU, whose lead candidate was Guido Wolf, won 27.0 percent and 42 seats. [The Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany entered on 15.1 percent and 23 seats, ahead of the SPD, and the FDP won 8.3 percent and 12 seats. Turnout was 70.4 percent, 4.1 points above 2011. Greens and SPD together had 66 seats, short of a majority. Schmid called the result painful and said voters had not been convinced by the SPD's record in government; the Greens, he said, had a clear mandate to form one.

On 4 June 2016, before SPD district chairs in Stuttgart, Schmid said he would not run again for state chair that autumn. A fresh start, he said, needed new leadership. Mast had already ruled out another term as general secretary. No candidacy had been declared; *Der Spiegel* named Landtag group chair Andreas Stoch and deputy chair Leni Breymaier as possible successors. The congress in Heilbronn on 22 October 2016 elected Breymaier, then also Verdi's state leader in Baden-Württemberg, with 264 votes in favour (84.89 percent), 35 against and 12 abstentions, after an initial count of 261 yes votes was corrected. Schmid's term as Landesvorsitzender, begun in November 2009, ended there.

## Deputy minister-president and minister of finance and economics

### Formation of the green-red government

In the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg election of 27 March 2011 the Christian Democratic Union remained the largest, on 39.0 percent, but Alliance 90/The Greens finished narrowly ahead of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, 24.2 to 23.1 percent, and the Free Democratic Party fell to 5.3 percent. Turnout was 66.3 percent. Greens and SPD won 36 and 35 seats, 71 of 138.

Because the Greens had outpolled the SPD, the minister-presidency went to Winfried Kretschmann. On 12 May 2011 the Landtag elected him with 73 votes, at least two from the opposition, and he was sworn in as the first Green head of a German state government, ending nearly 58 years of CDU-led cabinets in Baden-Württemberg. The ministers took the oath that afternoon.

Nils Schmid, SPD state chair and lead negotiator, made a public vote a condition of coalition. On 1 April 2011 he said there would be no agreement without a referendum on Stuttgart 21, a question of credibility after both parties had campaigned for one. The Greens opposed rebuilding Stuttgart's terminus as an underground through station; the SPD wanted the project.

On 20 April they announced a compromise Schmid called a breakthrough: costs, including a capacity "stress test" and the mediation settlement, were capped at 4.5 billion euros, with no state share of overruns, and a referendum by mid-October would decide a law cancelling the state's contracts for the station, not the Wendlingen–Ulm line, if Deutsche Bahn still proceeded. Both sides said they would accept the result. The deal was set out in *Der Wechsel beginnt*, presented on 27 April, approved on 7 May and signed on 9 May.

The SPD supplied the deputy minister-president and one more ministry than the Greens. Schmid took the combined [Ministry of Finance](/organizations/ministry-of-finance) and Economic Affairs, and the SPD received a new Ministry of Integration, for which Berlin deputy Bilkay Öney was nominated. The agreement also bound the coalition to abolish general tuition fees from summer 2012, introduce community schools, pass a procurement law on tariff loyalty with a floor of 8.50 euros an hour, and raise the real-estate transfer tax by 1.5 points for childcare and related local services.

### Fiscal, economic and education policy

The extra 1.5 points were to pay for care of very young children, kindergarten language support, school social work and all-day-school lunches, with the social effects to be examined. On 12 July 2011 the government said the higher rate would apply from the autumn; the CDU called it unsocial. Reports put the rise at 3.5 to 5 percent and the expected yield at about 350 million euros a year. The agreement also aimed at no new loans from 2020, in line with the federal debt rule.

Tuition fees, 500 euros a semester since summer 2007, were a science-ministry measure. On 26 July 2011 Kretschmann and Theresia Bauer presented a plan to abolish them from summer 2012 and replace about 150 million euros that year from taxation for teaching. Students still paid in winter 2011/12.

The community school was led by SPD culture minister Gabriele Warminski-Leitheußer. On 2 May 2012 the Landtag passed the law with the coalition and against the opposition: a year group would be taught together, without separation into Hauptschule, Realschule and Gymnasium, from at least grade 5 to 10. About 41 schools and more than 1,880 pupils were expected that autumn.

Labour rules sat in Schmid's portfolio. On 10 April 2013 the Landtag passed, with the green-red majority, a law on tariff loyalty and a minimum wage for public contracts, so that state and municipal work, including much of public transport, went only to firms paying agreed wages or at least 8.50 euros an hour. CDU deputy Reinhard Löffler called it a bureaucratic monster.

On 11 March 2015 the Landtag passed an educational-leave law, in force from 1 July, giving paid release for vocational and political training and for training linked to voluntary work. Schmid, whose ministry sponsored it, called it a balance between training and operations.

He also sat on boards of state-linked companies. The Amtsgericht Mannheim appointed him to the supervisory board of EnBW from 1 July 2011. The Landesbank Baden-Württemberg shareholders' meeting of 11 May 2015 reappointed him and proposed him as deputy chair. The L-Bank's 2015 report lists him as chairman of that development bank's supervisory board.

### Stuttgart 21 and other controversies

The vote slipped past mid-October. On 27 November 2011, under Article 60 of the state constitution, voters decided the S 21 cancellation law: a yes supported ending the state's financing contracts, not a direct yes or no to the station.

*Official ballot for the 27 November 2011 referendum on the Stuttgart 21 cancellation law.*

The state referendum committee certified the result on 9 December 2011. Of 7,624,302 people eligible, 3,682,739 (48.3 percent) voted. Of the valid votes, 1,507,961 (41.1 percent) supported cancellation and 2,160,411 (58.9 percent) opposed it. Neither a majority of yes votes nor the quorum—yes votes from one third of those eligible—was reached, so the bill failed. The 4.5 billion euro ceiling remained: the state was not to share overruns, including later increases.

In late October 2011 SPD parliamentary leader Claus Schmiedel demanded a change so the Greens would promote Stuttgart 21 if the cancellation law failed; the SPD feared they would otherwise keep trying to stop it.

In summer 2012 Schmid said the budget commission should examine farm subsidies with no "protective fence," likening them to planned teacher-post cuts, and put the state share at 156 million euros. Green parliamentary leader Edith Sitzmann and the rural-affairs ministry put it at 93 million, mainly agri-environment schemes, plus European and federal money, and noted that the ministry was about 2 percent of the budget. Farmers, counties and the CDU warned that cuts could forfeit co-financed European funds; Kretschmann warned against setting education against agriculture.

Schmid left office when a Green–CDU cabinet was sworn in on 12 May 2016 and the portfolio was split. Thomas Strobl (CDU) became deputy minister-president and interior minister; Edith Sitzmann (Greens) finance minister; Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut (CDU) minister of economic affairs, labour and housing. The finance ministry lists Schmid for 2011–2016 and Sitzmann as finance minister for 2016–2021.

## Bundestag

### Elections of 2017, 2021 and 2025

Schmid has been a member of the Bundestag since October 2017. At the federal elections of 2017, 2021 and 2025 he contested constituency 262, Nürtingen, in Baden-Württemberg, and stood on the state list of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). He did not win the direct seat in any of the three contests. The Bundestag records each mandate as a seat from the Baden-Württemberg list, with the Nürtingen candidacy alongside it.

For 2017 the SPD, meeting in Schwäbisch Gmünd on 11 March 2017, placed him sixth on its state list, with 217 votes in favour, 76 against and 19 abstentions (69.55 percent). In Nürtingen the SPD took 19.0 percent of the first votes (31,655), second to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on 39.4 percent (65,566). Alliance 90/The Greens had 14.8 percent and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) 11.9 percent. Turnout was 81.2 percent; the SPD's second-vote share in the constituency was 15.1 percent.

On 8 May 2021 a largely digital SPD state congress in Göppingen adopted a 36-place list headed by [Saskia Esken](/people/saskia-esken). At the election of 26 September 2021 Schmid was returned from second place on the Baden-Württemberg list, behind Esken, while Michael Hennrich of the CDU won the constituency. The SPD's first-vote share in Nürtingen was 21.0 percent (34,617), 2.0 percentage points higher than in 2017, against 30.1 percent (49,506) for the CDU and 18.0 percent for the Greens. Turnout was 80.5 percent, and the SPD's constituency second-vote share was 20.7 percent.

The election to the 21st Bundestag was held on 23 February 2025. On 15 December 2024 the SPD had again placed Esken first and Schmid second on its state list, and had nominated him in Nürtingen. He was once more elected from the list. In the constituency the SPD fell to 16.4 percent of the first votes (28,298), down 4.6 points, and finished third. Matthias Hiller (CDU) won with 37.7 percent; Christof Deutscher (AfD) was runner-up with 17.8 percent. Turnout was 85.1 percent, and the SPD's second-vote share was 14.1 percent.

### Committees and the SPD foreign-policy brief

In the 19th electoral term Schmid was a full member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, which met to constitute itself on 31 January 2018 under [Norbert Röttgen](/people/norbert-rottgen). The Bundestag's account of the committee records that Schmid was named deputy chair on 21 February 2018. On 20 March 2018 the SPD parliamentary group elected him its foreign-policy spokesperson, the office it treats as that of *Obmann* for the committee, in place of Niels Annen, a minister of state in the [Federal Foreign Office](/organizations/federal-foreign-office) since 14 March. The archived biography for the term lists him as *Obmann* of the Foreign Affairs Committee and as a deputy member of the Committee on Transport and Digital Infrastructure, rather than as deputy chair, and as a member of the Franco-German working group on the [Élysée Treaty](/facts/elysee-treaty).

He remained foreign-policy spokesperson and *Obmann* on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the 20th term, when the archived biography also lists him as a deputy member of the Joint Committee (*Gemeinsamer Ausschuss*). In the coalition talks after the 2021 election he was a member of the SPD's working group on [foreign affairs](/organizations/foreign-affairs), security, defence, development and human rights, with Heiko Maas, Siemtje Möller, Dietmar Nietan, [Bärbel Kofler](/people/barbel-kofler) and [Gabriela Heinrich](/people/gabriela-heinrich). In the CDU/CSU–SPD talks of March 2025 he was deputy leader, under [Svenja Schulze](/people/svenja-schulze), of the SPD side of the working group on foreign affairs and defence, development cooperation and human rights.

The Federal Ministry of Defence dates the spokesperson role to 2018–2025 and his appointment as parliamentary state secretary to May 2025. On 21 May 2025 the parliamentary group elected Adis Ahmetović spokesperson of its foreign-affairs working group. The Foreign Affairs Committee constituted itself the same day under Armin Laschet. Its ordinary SPD members were Ahmetović, Nancy Faeser, Hubertus Heil, Gabriela Heinrich, [Rolf Mützenich](/people/rolf-mutzenich), [Aydan Özoguz](/people/aydan-ozoguz), [Ralf Stegner](/people/ralf-stegner) and [Derya Türk-Nachbaur](/people/derya-turk-nachbaur); Schmid was not among them. The current Bundestag biography gives his function as parliamentary state secretary for defence. The self-reported narrative, which the Bundestag says is supplied by the member, still calls him the group's foreign-policy spokesperson "since 2018".

### Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly

The Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly (*Deutsch-Französische Parlamentarische Versammlung*) was set up by the Franco-German parliamentary agreement of March 2019. Schmid's biographies record him as a member from 2019 and as a member of its board from 2020, and, in the 19th term, as a voting member of its working group on foreign and defence policy.

After the 2021 election the assembly chose a new German half of its board at its seventh sitting, held in hybrid form at the [National Assembly](/organizations/national-assembly) on 21 February 2022. Nine full members and four substitutes were elected, with Schmid as chair of the board. The French half was renewed at the eighth sitting, on 7 November 2022, the first in-person meeting in the Bundestag since February 2020. [Brigitte Klinkert](/people/brigitte-klinkert), deputy for Haut-Rhin, was elected chair on the French side and held the office jointly with Schmid. The assembly's report for 2022 describes the two chairs as having been chosen in those two steps, and records thanks to the previous chairs, Andreas Jung and Christophe Arend, for their role in establishing the body. The archived biography for the 20th term lists Schmid as chair of the board and as an ordinary member.

## Foreign and security policy

As foreign-policy spokesperson of the Social Democratic Party of Germany group in the Bundestag from 2018, Nils Schmid argued for stronger deterrence and a narrower dialogue inside NATO and the European Union.

### Russia, Ukraine and NATO

On 27 February 2022, after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Schmid told the Bundestag that the attack had ended hopes, dating from a 1989 exchange in Poltava, of a pan-European order. "Dialogue and deterrence" would become "deterrence and dialogue": OSCE rules, trade and civil links would matter less, though some channels into Russian society should remain for a Russia after [Vladimir Putin](/people/vladimir-putin). That morning he told Deutschlandfunk a longer war was likely, that the EU would quickly sanction the Russian economy and financial sector, and that military aid still had to be weighed.

He later treated weapons as part of that pressure. In August 2023 he did not rule out systems such as Taurus if Ukraine, not Bundeswehr soldiers, programmed the targets, which otherwise would come "dangerously close to direct participation in the war". In February 2024, while [Olaf Scholz](/people/mig-olaf-scholz) still refused Taurus, Schmid said a coalition motion neither demanded the missiles at once nor closed a later change of mind. When the Bundestag on 14 March again rejected a CDU/CSU motion naming Taurus, he called coalition members who backed it, among them [Wolfgang Kubicki](/people/wolfgang-kubicki) and [Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann](/people/marie-agnes-strack-zimmermann), "stupid". On 1 June 2024 he said Ukraine should be allowed to use Western weapons against military targets in Russia, and that Kyiv could be trusted on the risk of escalation.

On NATO's 75th anniversary, 4 July 2024, he cited the Harmel view, in the line of Herbert Wehner's 1960 commitment to the alliance, that military security and détente fit together, so aid and diplomacy were not alternatives. Deterrence, including nuclear deterrence, had to grow while talk with Russia stayed scarce. Reported Russian plans to kill the head of Rheinmetall were, he said, hybrid warfare against Germany itself, and US long-range missiles in Germany were appropriate. He did not expect [Donald Trump](/people/mig-donald-trump) to leave NATO or mutual defence, but Europeans would have to do more, Germany would meet the 2 percent target once the special fund was spent, and Ukraine's fate must not be decided over its head.

After Trump's election he told the *Frankfurter Rundschau* that aggression must not be rewarded and that Europe could still sustain Ukraine if US aid stopped, through a G7 package of €50 billion, frozen Russian assets and looser debt rules if needed. In February 2025 he said talks must not bypass Ukrainians or other Europeans or separate their security from the United States; NATO membership was the strongest guarantee, 2 percent should be met permanently and exceeded if required, and Russia's "neo-imperialist" policy would outlast the war. After [JD Vance](/people/jd-vance)'s Munich speech he said he was "disturbed and shaken" that partnership with Washington was no longer assured, and he backed [Ursula von der Leyen](/people/energy-ursula-von-der-leyen)'s defence exception in EU debt rules. On 19 March he called a Trump–Putin pause on energy sites "somewhat meagre", and said "a cession of territory must not happen", though Ukraine could itself leave control of individual occupied areas.

### European Union and France

In December 2021 he said closer coordination, especially with France, was essential because Washington would not join every European step, and defined sovereignty as capacity in technology, trade and migration as well as arms. In July 2024 he said Europe would have to trade more alone — failure of an EU–Mercosur deal was a "drama", and French caution would harden — while keeping labour and environmental standards, and that Trump did not take the EU seriously.

### Middle East and other regions

In a *Welt* commentary of 5 February 2024 Schmid wrote that the Hamas attack, with more than 1,000 dead, had opened a war in the Gaza Strip estimated at more than 20,000 dead and liable to spread through Hezbollah and Houthi attacks on the Red Sea. [Benjamin Netanyahu](/people/benjamin-netanyahu)'s attempt to manage the conflict by force had failed on 7 October, Palestinian leaders had lost trust through corruption and the lack of elections, and a free Palestine could not be built on violence and terror. Israel's security was part of German *Staatsräson*, including arms, but not a blank cheque: he paired it with a negotiated two-state solution to end what he called illegal occupation, and wrote that the conduct of the war and Netanyahu's rejection of two states weakened Israel. A defensive EU naval mission, with a German frigate, was in his view the right answer at sea.

On 21 March 2024, after meeting relatives of an Israeli soldier killed on 7 October, he called the fight against Hamas infrastructure justified but said doubts about proportionality, which he linked to [Lars Klingbeil](/people/lars-klingbeil), meant a full offensive in Rafah would fail that test. He asked for a ceasefire to free the hostages and move aid, and said only a negotiated two-state settlement, with Palestinian statehood visible at once, could break the cycle. CDU/CSU spokesman [Jürgen Hardt](/people/jurgen-hardt) replied that whether Rafah would breach proportionality could not be judged from Berlin. In a *Spiegel* interview of 26 February Schmid said recognition of a Palestinian state "should not be a taboo for us"; the magazine reported that he wanted Germany and others to consider it only after Hamas freed all Israeli hostages and after far-reaching Palestinian reforms.

On China he said in 2021 that cooperation should continue where it could, while the contest was also between systems of government, and that a frigate in the South China Sea had rightly insisted on international law. After [Joe Biden](/people/env-person-joe-biden) called [Xi Jinping](/people/env-person-xi-jinping) a dictator in June 2023, Schmid told Reuters that China was "of course" a one-party dictatorship and that he was not outraged, though redefining democracy and human rights would mean more disputes of principle.

## Parliamentary State Secretary at the Defence Ministry

On 6 May 2025, the day Friedrich Merz was elected chancellor and the CDU/CSU–SPD cabinet was sworn in, Nils Schmid became Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Defence. Boris Pistorius, who remained in office, received his certificate from President [Frank-Walter Steinmeier](/people/frank-walter-steinmeier) and took the oath that evening, then at the ministry bade farewell to [Siemtje Möller](/people/siemtje-moller) and Thomas Hitschler. Schmid and Sebastian Hartmann, both Social Democratic members of the Bundestag, were presented as their successors. The day before, he told *Südwest Presse* that in no other department did the *Zeitenwende* weigh as heavily, citing the strengthening of the Bundeswehr, a common European armaments policy and international deployments.

The office is not a seat in the federal government. Under the Parliamentary State Secretaries Act of 1974, holders stand in a public-law relationship to the Federation, must be members of the Bundestag except in a special case at the Chancellery, and are appointed by the Federal President on the chancellor’s proposal in agreement with the minister concerned. Schmid has remained the member for Nürtingen; the Bundestag lists his function as Parliamentary State Secretary for Defence. The Federal Ministry of Defence dates the post from May 2025.

With the minister, the two parliamentary state secretaries, three permanent state secretaries and the Chief of Defence form the ministry’s leadership; each state secretary represents the minister in fields set out in his additional instructions. The ministry states that Schmid is occupied chiefly with armaments, planning, the budget, legal affairs and infrastructure, and represents it on the Bundestag Budget Committee, while Hartmann covers policy, the armed forces and force growth and sits for the ministry on the Defence Committee. The directorates themselves are assigned to the permanent state secretaries: Nils Hilmer for force growth, budget and defence policy, including infrastructure, and Jens Plötner for armaments, innovation, cyber and related planning.

On 4 November 2025 Schmid represented Germany at the groundbreaking in Baisogala, central Lithuania, for a Rheinmetall plant intended to produce 155 mm artillery shells. The ministry said the site of about 340 hectares was planned to make tens of thousands of shells a year and to employ about 150 people; Euronews reported an investment of up to €300 million, with first production aimed at 2026. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė and Rheinmetall chief executive Armin Papperger attended. Schmid called greater ammunition capacity a security necessity and said the security of the eastern flank, the Baltic region and Lithuania was part of European security. At the ceremony Rheinmetall and the [Lithuanian government](/organizations/lithuanian-government) also signed a memorandum of understanding on a centre for propellant charges.

On 9 and 10 December 2025 Schmid stood in for Pistorius, who was ill, on the minister’s pre-Christmas visit to German detachments on NATO’s eastern flank. In Romania he met State Secretary Sorin-Dan Moldovan at Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base near Constanța, where about 170 personnel and five Eurofighters had flown enhanced air policing since August 2025. The ministry reported his account that alerts were driven largely by Russian drones, some entering Romanian airspace, and that Germany backed Romania’s bid for loans under the European Union’s SAFE instrument.

The next day, at Malbork in Poland, about 80 kilometres from Kaliningrad, he met Deputy Defence Minister Paweł Zalewski. Four Eurofighters and about 150 personnel had been declared operational there on 6 December, after a move prepared in six weeks rather than the usual six months. The ministry said Pistorius had decided on that deployment after repeated Russian airspace violations, and that both the Polish and Romanian missions formed part of NATO’s Eastern Sentry operation.

*Nils Schmid (left) with Polish deputy defence minister Paweł Zalewski in front of a German Eurofighter at Malbork Air Base, 10 December 2025.*

dpa reported that Zalewski then said Poland wanted German experience so drones could be countered at lower cost, announcing cooperation on what the agency called the SAM air-defence system, and that Schmid said allies would cooperate closely using a mix of weapons. The ministry quoted Schmid as saying Germany stood with Poland and intended to send army engineers, under the Eastern Shield mission, toward the border with Kaliningrad and Belarus.

## Other activities, honours and personal life

Schmid is a Protestant, is married to Tülây Schmid and has two children. The Baden-Württemberg government and the *Südwest Presse* identify Reutlingen as his place of residence.

On 9 May 2025 Minister-President Winfried Kretschmann conferred the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg on Schmid at the Baroque Palace in Mannheim, one of 24 people honoured that day. SWR described the decoration as the state's highest award. It is given for outstanding service to the state, especially in politics, social affairs, culture and the economy; living holders are limited to 1,000, and 2,076 people had received it since 1975. Until June 2009 it was the Verdienstmedaille. The official note on Schmid referred to his record in Land and federal politics, to his emphasis on human rights and on support for Ukraine as foreign-policy spokesman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) group in the Bundestag, and to unpaid work that includes chairing the Werner-Weinmann-Stiftung since 2019. The foundation, based in Nürtingen, supports civic engagement in youth and elderly care and in projects across generations. The *Südwest Presse* reported the award as recognition of that long-standing engagement.

The Bundestag publishes the outside activities members must notify under the code of conduct in the *Abgeordnetengesetz*. In the entry current as of 25 October 2026, Schmid's posts are marked unpaid. He is a member of the board of the Deutsch-Französisches Institut in Ludwigsburg, of the presidium of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik in Berlin, of the political advisory board of the Wirtschaftsforum der SPD, and of the advisory board of the Zentrum für Osteuropa- und internationale Studien, also in Berlin. Three further seats are held ex officio as well as without pay: the foundation council of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) from 27 September 2025, the supervisory board of the Zentrum für Internationale Friedenseinsätze from 15 October 2025, and, from 1 April 2026, the foundation council of the Deutsche Stiftung Friedensforschung in Osnabrück.

Other trusteeships ended in the autumn of 2025. He chaired the board of trustees of Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg gGmbH in Stuttgart until 1 October 2025. He left the board of trustees of the Deutsch-Türkisches Forum Stuttgart and the advisory board of the Konsortium Türkisch-Deutsche Universität on 31 October 2025, and the board of trustees of the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart on 5 November 2025. The biographical text on the same page, which the Bundestag states rests on members' own information, also lists him as chair of the Werner-Weinmann-Stiftung and as a member of the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, the Atlantik-Brücke and the Deutsch-Türkische Gesellschaft.

The register separately names a lawyer's practice in Filderstadt among remunerated activities alongside the mandate, and a right to return to the firm K3S Rechtsanwälte there from his occupation before he entered the Bundestag. The SPD parliamentary group's profile states that the practice has been suspended since 2011, and the Bundestag entry publishes no income figure for it.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/nils-schmid